1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a lighting device for a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improvement of a mechanism disposed in a lighting device of the foregoing type for preliminarily fitting a lens to an extension before an assembly of the lens and the extension is firmly fitted to a housing of a lighting device, and wherein the extension is disposed in the lighting device for the purpose of covering a part of the lighting device unnecessary to be visually seen by anybody.
2. Background Art
To facilitate understanding of the present invention, a typical conventional mechanism of the foregoing type will briefly be described below with reference to FIG. 2. With the conventional mechanism, since the direction of fitting a lens 91 to an extension 92 largely differs from the direction of the lens 91 to a housing 93 of a lighting device (not shown), it is practically impossible to fit the lens 91 to the extension 92 after the extension 92 latter is preliminarily fitted to the housing 93. For this reason, the lens 91 is first fitted to the extension 92 to form an assembly and, thereafter, the assembly of the lens 91 and the extension 92 is fitted to the housing 93.
To assure that the lens 91 is reliably fitted to the extension 92, a part of the lens 91 is extended from a housing fitting foot portion 91a to form an auxiliary foot portion 91b so that the lens 91 is firmly secured to the extension 92 by fixing the auxiliary foot portion 91b to the extension 92 at plural locations by tightening a plurality of screws as shown in FIG. 2.
With the conventional mechanism constructed in the above-described manner, since there arises a necessity for fixing the auxiliary foot portion 9lb to the housing fitting foot portion 91a with the aid of a plurality of screws before an assembly of the lens 91 and the extension 92 is firmly fitted to the housing 93 of the lighting device, a lens fitting operation is achieved in a complicated manner with an increased number of steps, resulting in the lighting device being produced at an increased cost.